IBM Deleted Evidence Claims SCO

July 21st, 2006: SCO has alleged files that prove IBM stole parts of the Unix Code for the development of Linux were destroyed.

This latest turn in an increasingly bitter and madcap case was revealed in a claim filed by the SCO Group in the Utah District Court. SCO has failed continually to provide any evidence that IBM stole parts of the Unix code over which it has some copyright. Now for the first time SCO has offered an explanation for its incapability to provide any proof of code stealing, saying IBM programmers deleted crucial evidence shortly after SCO filed suit in 2003.

"It's kind of hard for us to do that," says Brent Hatch, one of SCO’s attorneys from Hatch, James & Dodge in Salt Lake City, "because we don't have it. It was destroyed before it could be given to us."

SCO and IBM had been working to develop a Unix port for the Intel 64-bit Itanium system, but the deal fell apart in 2000. IBM then supported the development of Linux, with SCO beginning legal proceedings in 2003. Earlier this month SCO suffered a setback when Judge Brooke Wells chastised SCO for its behaviour during the trial, saying its “wilful failure” to identify exactly which parts of the Linux software were stolen was prejudicial to IBM. Wells through out 182 of SCO’s 294 claims against IBM.

Now SCO has filed an objection asking the overseeing Judge, Dale A. Kimball, to overrule the Wells decision. In the objection SCO alleges that IBM deleted two versions of the Unix code in 2003, called AIX and Dynix, which could have helped SCO prove its case. “Weeks after SCO filed its lawsuit, IBM directed ‘dozens’ of its Linux developers...to delete the AIX and/or Dynix source code from their computers”, SCO’s objection claims.

According to Hatch the allegation is now relevant, because it helps explain why SCO could not meet demands to cite source code. No comment was made on why the allegations were not mentioned earlier when they might have helped SCO before the Wells decision.

IBM has declined to pass comment on the claim saying it is company policy not to discuss current litigation.

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